Three times in my adult life I have made the painful, difficult decision to end a long term close (I had thought) friendship. There is fault on both sides, but particularly with regard to the last one which came to a head last year, it reached the point where I came to realise not only had it been toxic for some time for me but that I was a toxic presence in my former friend’s (hereafter FF) life. It was thanks to the information received from mutual friends that I realised the toxicity was reciprocated.
I had tried very hard to try speak about the problems with my FF, to come to a solution, only to be blocked in every attempt. Texts were stopped, pages were blocked, conversations started by both of us were ended by my FF sometimes mid-flow. I am sure my FF would say the same. In every situation there is grey, and in the slow-burn ending of a previously very close friendship, there will be more grey than anything else. I am trying not to blame, and this is a difficult process. We are both responsible, and for the sake of my mental health, I have to accept there will be no closure, no understanding, no peaceful truce or clear cut-off. I will never be able to be understood.
This is only the third time in my life I have made myself take a final decision, and I have been on the planet for nearly 50 years. Even then in the latter case I only took the decision because everything came to a head as a result of a conversation with a mutual friend; it could have been a situation that went on for a far longer time to the detriment of us both.
The previous friendships ended when I realised that neither person actually knew who I was as a person, despite our long and deep conversations over many years. Their understanding of me was based on a misconceived and false image that they had projected onto me. I did not recognise the person they assumed I was. I even checked this out with other friends, so confused was I by this massive misunderstanding of my character. The situation was not fair to me and made me realise the friendship itself was not real but a fantasy. I was ending a friendship that had already disappeared, in all three cases.
Even now, many months after stepping back from my FF, I still find myself hoping that maybe something could change, but when the lines of communication have been shut down by the other person and when that other person is triggered by my presence, my word, by their misunderstanding of me, then there is little I can do, and I do not want to cause further harm to my FF by any attempt to do so.
This decision has been years in the making, I realise now. Neither of us know the people we have become, and to each other we are now strangers, strangers who were once non-blood siblings.
It happens, but my goodness it hurts. More than the loss of a lover, the loss of a friend causes a grief that chokes me. I cannot think of them without wistful mourning, without wishing to know they are well in spite of their lack of knowledge of me.
It hurts because they didn’t know me and they showed it. I spoke my truth and shared my secrets and still they did not understand the core of my being. That must be as much my aversion to conflict and therefore to correcting when I noticed, if I noticed. I do place the responsibility in my corner because it was from my corner I came out to fight for myself, my identity and the reality of who I am, and in moving out from that corner I was backed into I made the decision to end the friendships.
I have no idea how they feel about me now, or even if I feature in their thoughts at all. They still feature in mine, and most kindly now. The hurt they caused has faded and the memories of how close we once were remain. There was love there, once. That is enough for me to have fondness and hopes for their future.
I made the right decision, I know that. The right decision is often the hardest decision, but for the sake of myself and my FFs, it is one I had to make.
If they see this, and if they recognise themselves, I hope they realise I do still carry love for them and always will. It’s just that love is not enough, in any relationship, without truth.

At this point, my tree is a forest!
I have been researching my family tree almost obsessively since I signed up to Ancestry.co.uk (other sites are available, probably) two years ago and spent 100 hours in one week having masses of fun. It was Yulemas week off work and my beloved Sooterkin™ was playing with his PS4 (not a euphemism), so what’s a person to do…?
I have found ancestors back to beyond 500 AD on at least one line because I got lucky and hit a line of Scottish nobility which then led to Kings (I come from a lot of second sons, daughters married off and those born on the wrong side of the blanket as t’were). Apparently those of Viking Ancestry like to trace back to Odin, so I am ‘officially’ descended from his brother/son Baldur. I have also got a line back to William the Bastard Conqueror, and his line like to trace back to the Christian God, so I have that deity too. Wahay, I’m doubly mythical!
This addiction was partly inspired by “Who Do You Think You Are?”, a fabulous BBC TV series which traces the roots of famous people and tells the stories of individual experience through history using this medium. It was a programme about Noel Clarke (series 14 ep. 8), a fantastic actor/director/writer/producer, which stopped me in my tracks.
Noel Clarke is descended from people trafficked into slavery in the United States. His line, and the line of many, many black people in the UK, United States and across the world, cannot be traced further back than that. It ends. This is what it means to people now; I as a white person of privilege in the UK can merrily trace my ancestry back far beyond where I thought I would, and he and so many others cannot.
Researching my family tree and seeing results is a privilege of my skin colour. Yes, I do have a lot of very poor people in my tree, from the 1700 and 1800s onwards. But they are recorded in parish registries, they have birth, baptism and death records, they have paper trails, they are human beings with all the individual right to exist that that entails.

Not even a hint of Celt from the west! Although I can trace back to Picts, so there’s that…
I also obtained my DNA history through the site, and received possibly the least surprising result ever, to me anyway. I am so Anglo-Saxon it hurts. I am an amalgam of immigration way back when, which confirms my ‘right’ to be and claim to be ‘English’, as I am sure many racists would be insistent upon. To me, it confirms I am steeped in white privilege. To others, it should mean nothing at all but it does because of racism; institutional, systemic and individual acts of racism.
Noel Clarke was eventually able to trace his roots back to Ghana, through the music and dance his ancestors on the tiny Caribbean Island of Carriacou would hold onto through the years of slavery, and after freedom was granted. He knew the location of his ancestors before they were ripped from their lives to become little more than chattels to enrich the white western world. I know the names of my ancestors because I was lucky enough to be born white in that rich white western world.
Researching one’s family tree and being able to obtain results is a privilege, one that I don’t think would really occur to anyone who is white. One’s personal family history is a privilege to be able to know and that saddens me. The effects of slavery are very long-reaching; time does not lessen the impact, just hides it from plain view.
“Huh?” I hear all two of my loyal readers say, under their breath lest they should disturb their imaginary friend from their shenaniganning. What? It’s a word.
Well, when debating about the reduced level of UK economic productivity on Wednesday 6th December in the Treasury Select Committee meeting, Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond(Eggs) stated (transcript here):
“It is almost certainly the case that by increasing participation in the workforce, including far higher levels of participation by marginal groups and very high levels of engagement in the workforce, for example of disabled people – something we should be extremely proud of – may have had an impact on overall productivity measurements.”
Green Party MP Caroline Lucas challenged this discriminatory statement and asked Theresa May, as Prime Minister and person with overall responsibility for her cabinet, to apologise and confirm the government does not believe disabled people are detrimental to the workforce as Mr Hammond’s comments imply, Ms May simply stated that:
“Actually the Chancellor did not express the views that she claims that he was expressing. This is a government that values the contribution disabled people make to our society and our economy and the workplace.”
I am pretty sure I am not the only person who nearly fell out of their seat in shock at Ms May(hem)’s blatant restructuring of the truth. I’m trying to laugh at her about it. I’m failing.
This government has an appalling record with regard to policy on disability issues. Thousands of people living with myriad forms of disabling conditions have died as a result of the changes to the benefits system; 2,380 between 2011 and 2014 alone. ). As for those who are in work, this figure has risen from 2.9million in 2013 to 3.5million in late 2016; from 44.2% to 49.5% of all disabled people of working age according to the Office of National Statistics.
But let’s take a closer look at what appears to be a positive statistic. The ‘employed’ category includes anyone who has worked in paid employment for one hour or more in the week in which the statistical evidence was collected; yes, one hour. Anyone on a zero hours contract, anyone working part-time, and anyone who is not counted as unemployed – given the wholesale rejigging of the benefits system, I’d be interested to see exactly how many disabled people that includes and how disproportionate it may be in comparison to able-bodied people in such types of employment, but sadly that figure does not seem to exist.
What’s more, those people with learning disabilities form markedly fewer employed people in this analysis. 7.1% (2011-12) of those registered with local authorities used to be in paid employment. That figure is now just 5.8%.
Tory government policies are making chronic conditions actively worse by increasing stress levels, removing mobility aids (effectively removing disabled people from the job-seeking pool), cutting benefits available to help disabled people into work, changing the rules so disabled people don’t even count as ‘unemployed’ (although the Government has done that for myriad groupings, so the figures are properly massaged and misrepresentative – many have died since the Tories took power under David Cameron and he ran off to let Theresa May deal with the fall-out), and closing down the facilities that were set up to help disabled people get back into work.
It is not disabled people who are having a detrimental effect on the economy; the economy is having a detrimental effect on disabled people.
What exactly does ‘disabled’ mean anyway? There are so many different conditions, syndromes, illnesses, chronic and acute, which have a life-limiting and/or shortening effect on those who are living with them. It is a catch-all term which groups together a disparate number of people under an umbrella genus which has resulted in questions formed by officialdom which cannot actually be answered! For example, when being interviewed for my free travel pass I am asked what I am like on my worst day – well, for which condition? I have six chronic conditions, three of which come under the category ‘disabled’, one of which has a particular effect on my day-to-day life. It is the osteoarthritis that has the most detrimental effect on my life at the moment. I can work full-time, but the travel pass enables me to plan in advance knowing I will be able to get to work and home again if nothing else, but some days I am fine with walking and on my worst day I have had to hire a mobility scooter!
There are others whose conditions are far more life-limiting, those whose conditions are stable and unchanging, those whose conditions cause intellectual delay and/or restricted development, those who cannot work to a timetable because their bodies don’t work to a timetable… the differentiation goes on!
What disability really means is that society does not enable people who are in any way restricted to access all aspects of life which a ‘normal’ person can access. The person with the condition is not disabled, they become disabled by the limitations of society.
At the moment, places need to be adapted to be accessible; it is not even considered that homes or workplaces, or even benefit offices should be accessible to those with limitations. This seems to me to be backwards thinking. We ALL will end up with limitations in our lives, should we be lucky enough to live that long. Everywhere should be automatically accessible, from inception.
A few ideas for en-abling society:
- Instead of having to convert property to be accessible, make it accessible from the first architects drawing.
- Pay a living (not minimum) wage to all.
- Have firms offer flexi-time as a standard for all positions, enabling people with chronic pain for example to plan their working week.
- Job-share as a standard for full-time positions should be standard also.
- Have assessors for the new PIP scheme be trained and familiar with conditions, or if they are not, actually pay attention to and believe what the medical reports provided by the claimants say. GPs/Consultants don’t lie.
- Publicise the Access To Work scheme a damn sight more than at the moment, to employers as well as potential employees.
Far from disabling the economy, it is society as a whole that chooses to disable people. In doing so, surely the bare minimum that could be expected that those society disables should be supported? We are all capable of far more than we are allowed to express; whether ‘disabled’ or ‘able-bodied’. Why should it be acceptable that society should limit certain of us, especially as those are the very people who should receive the support so often denied.
For further reading on disability issues (activism and experience), try these blogs:
https://crippledscholar.com/
https://spoonshortagesue.wordpress.com/
http://www.francescamartinez.com/en/d1/Enter-Site-https://dpac.uk.net/category/disability-activism/
https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org
For some strange reason *coughRELIGION/PATRIARCHY/CAPITALISMcough* characteristics which define personalities have long since been assigned to specific genders, and any behaviour which is not perceived to be fitting to the gender a person presents results in them being discriminated against, abused and harassed.
Feminism has long fought against patriarchy but is butting its head against that same glass ceiling which suppresses women when trying to show how it affects men detrimentally, to the point of killing them through suicide and all people through violence. Strong words, you may think, so let’s see what exactly does define ‘masculinity’ and what effect that has.

word cloud care of feministing.com
Men* are supposed to be strong and preferably tall, be imposing or at the very least have a physical presence, unemotional (definitely no crying!), independent, the wage-earner and provider for their (nuclear) family, responsible decision-makers, be courageous, sexually virile if not promiscuous (but only with cisgender women), aggressive, active, logical, rational and disciplined, and to be self-reliant leaders.
There is also nothing within this list which should specifically pertain to a gender and the enactment of those characteristics to the exclusion of and discrimination against those who do not comply to the masculine norm restricts the roles and lives men can live.
Don’t get me wrong, patriarchy benefits men far more than it inhibits them. Intersectional privilege mean that white able-bodied straight-presenting educated and wealthy men benefit far more than any other class of men. However, patriarchal enforcement of masculine characteristics is dangerous and deadly.
Men who do not act in the way they are supposed, by seeking a job in a caring profession for example, or by shying away from violence or being victims of domestic or street violence themselves, or by being attracted to same gender partners, or by suffering from mental health problems, or in any way not being the strong, tough, independent ‘real man’, will suffer. Male suicide is reaching epidemic proportions; it is now one of the top three killers of men. Worldwide, in 2015 men made up two thirds of the suicide figures. The World Health Organisation has reported that the highest risk group for suicide is young men between 25 and 44, and is the second leading cause of death for all people aged between 15 and 29. In the UK, men killed themselves at three times the rate of women. In the Republic of Ireland, the rate is five times higher.
As for violent acts committed against others, one need only look at the reports coming in daily on terrorist acts, acts of domestic violence, and street violence, to see that men commit such crimes at a far higher rate than women; the figures are disproportionate to any claim that gender has nothing to do with it. We cannot expect men to express aggressive go-getting behaviours and then be shocked when they act out that aggression in negative ways.
Between 1974 and 2016 there were 2,360 suicide terrorist attacks throughout the world committed by men, murdering 21,707 people. In the same time period there were 221 attacks by women, murdering 2,286 people.
That is only just less ten times the rate of terrorist attack by men than by women.
The discussion about the tragedy toxic masculinity is wreaking on society is becoming increasingly open, and there are places to which men can now go and seek help with mental health issues online** and in person, but still we teach our male-presenting children to conform to masculine ideals. A new-born boy is complimented with being ‘big’, ‘strong’, ‘handsome’ and ‘clever’; his parent’s ‘little man’. His parents will be told their son will many girl’s hearts when he gets older. I recommend you have a wander around the gendered clothing and toy aisles in supermarkets and clothing stores to see how differently and restrictively the genders are treated (that gender may not be a binary fact of life is not even conceived of!). By the time the child is ready for school, he will already be exhibiting the gendered characteristics that were not showing when a baby. They will have been socialised into him and he will already in a gender box (albeit a far bigger one than his sister).
This boxing of the male gender is killing them and it is killing us. Characteristics are simply that, characteristics. That we have decided they belong to a penis or a vagina, to an XY or an XX chromosome, is utterly ridiculous and would be laughable if it wasn’t so damaging.
We need to stop assigning men and women specific characteristics according to gender. Characteristics are simply ways of being a person, and we are all a bundle of different characteristics. There is no such thing as a characteristic which is only exhibited by one gender; that simply does not exist.
Toxic masculinity needs to end; it’s killing us all.
* as defined by presenting in society as of the male sex and inclusive of cisgender and transgender identities.
** UK – https://www.thecalmzone.net/
http://tasc-uk.org/male-suicide/
https://ex.movember.com/mens-health/mental-health
USA – the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255
http://www.spsamerica.org/considering-suicide
Worldwide
Phone app – HOW TO HELP PEOPLE http://www.suicidepreventionapp.com/about
In many countries – http://www.befrienders.org/

There is no gender characteristic binary except that which we impose.
Last night, for the first time in the four months almost to the day that I have been wearing my Raspberry* Badge (as I call it, having finally been trained by Sooterkin™ and Brother-Wife™ that it is not cockney rhyming slang when you actually use the word which rhymes as a shorthand), someone noticed it and stood up for me so I could sit in a seat on public transport. It wasn’t a seat specifically for disabled/elderly/people-with-children, those were occupied already, but it was a seat which I needed.
LovelyYoungMan (as he shall henceforth be known) moved only when a mother with a child started to wake her child up to put on her lap so I could sit, and his conscience was stirred. LYM apologised profusely, and said he’d noticed my badge and had been staring at it but had not twigged what it actually meant. He may have blushed. It was quite sweet!
I don’t blame LYM for not knowing what it meant, nor do I blame the myriad others who have clearly read the badge but ignored it completely; it’s entirely possible they had simply drifted into a reverie as I often do and the words did not penetrate their consciousness. A walking stick has better luck in gaining the possessor access to the seats specifically put aside for disabled passengers in that it is more clearly visible, but I have watched the faces of those who have read the badge, looked at me and just looked away. Not all of them are disabled too.
There has been no publicity with regard to the new badges made available to help those of us with invisible disabilities and/or chronic pain conditions and/or mobility issues (not always the same thing). I chat with many fellow raspberries and inform them of the badge and how to apply for it, and not a single one of them has known about it prior to meeting me.
Seats taken up by bags is a very common sight on buses, and I need two buses each way on my commute to and from work so this is a definite and ongoing problem for me. It seems people don’t realise that disabled people can work and therefore might need the space to sit in order to actually get to work. Ironic in a political climate which is attacking disabled people to the point that they are unable to receive sufficient benefits to survive and are therefore forced to work (even if they are unable to do so or their conditions are unable to submit themselves to the strict timetabling work generally employs) or to die.

Not a bag, but an oddly shaped child called M’Tarquinias. Or something.
Both of the women in these pictures noticed me. Both ignored me, after the one in the left picture gave me a dirty look at the sound of the click of my mobile phone as it took the picture (I feel no guilt, she is not identifiable from this image)! Both women were capable of having their little bags on their laps and allowing a disabled person (or elderly person, or parent with child, as these seats are for them too) to sit on that seat. These people I feel are just rude and thoughtless. Many schoolchildren use ‘spare’ seats as bag rests too, but are quick to move the bag when asked, even if with a heavy sigh of hard-done-by-poor-me. Neither of these women moved their bags.

Also not a bag, but a dog that has had extensive plastic surgery. Probably.
I had the badge on for both occasions, and as you can see from the top picture I wear it prominently where it is obvious and easy to read. The same has happened many more times than I can count, when I was still unable to sit in the disabled seats. On one of the aforementioned occasions I managed to get a seat further back by hauling my pain-filled carcass up the steps to climb into them, yet many people were still standing including others who were elderly, parents or visibly disabled.
Clearly, awareness of the existence of the badge is required, as is how to apply for it**. Moreover though, it appears an acknowledgement and understanding of the variety of disabilities and the needs of those with them is also required before people will take notice of it. On the plus side, due to the invisibility of my mobility issues the badge does mean that if I am sat in the seats for disabled people, I am not questioned or glared at or talked at/down/to in a derogatory manner for my mere presence in the area!
So, if you see anyone wearing this badge, and you are sitting down in the disabled area, or indeed if you are sat in any other area of the bus, please do offer them your seat. They are not wearing the badge for a joke, I promise you, and they do really need to sit down!
*Raspberry Ripple = cripple. Only disabled/differently-abled should use this, otherwise it may be considered discriminatory and negative. Unless you are friends with raspberries and are using it in a context which all those with you understand clearly to be an affectionate term with permitted usage by said raspberry! It’s all about the context in which the term is used.
**Apply for the badge here: https://tfl.gov.uk/campaign/please-offer-me-a-seat